Hundreds of thousands of young people are being failed by the vocational education system, an independent report is due to say.

Government sources said that the findings of the Wolf Report would demonstrate that Labour forced millions of youngsters into "dead-end qualifications" with no prospects of them leading to good jobs.

Professor Alison Wolf of King's College London was commissioned by Education Secretary Michael Gove in September to carry out a review of vocational qualifications and the responsiveness of the system to the changing needs of the labour market.

Her report will say too many vocational courses are of low quality and do not lead to higher education or stable jobs.

She estimates that between a quarter and a third of 16-to-19 year-olds - some 300,000-400,000 teenagers - are on programmes offering no clear opportunities for progression and leading to qualifications which little or no market value.

In some cases, courses may even make their students less employable, the report suggests.

A government source said: "Under Labour millions of children left school without English and maths GCSE and millions were pushed into dead-end qualifications.

"High-quality vocational education is absolutely crucial to the future of the country and the economy.

"The Wolf Review gives us a detailed blueprint for learning from the most successful countries and putting Labour's failure behind us."